Sam Shere's "The Hindenburg Disaster"

             Few images capture the absolute failings of technological advancements more exquisitely than Sam Shere’s iconic May 6, 1937 image, “The Hindenburg Disaster,” taken as the monolithic German airship crashes to the ground in a tremendous ball of fire and charred metal skeletal supports. Although twenty-two photographers and newsreel personnel were present for the historic docking of the airship (The Photography Book 412), it is Shere’s image that remains most prominently in the minds of the public—as well as on their “books, magazines, record album covers, posters, postage stamps, and Web sites” (Hariman & Lucaites 247).

While others recorded the sights and sounds of the tragedy that led to 35 fatalities, Shere’s image holds the appeal and aesthetic quality that made it the representative image of that day and that event. Among the images of the first half of the twentieth century, Shere’s photograph stands with Lange’s “Migrant Mother” and Capa’s “The Falling Soldier” as a defining image of that time. Its composition, tonal range, and subject matter make for an indelible memory burned in the minds of those who were there, as well as those who experienced the disaster after the fact in newspapers and magazines. There is simply something about Shere’s image that holds a timeless appeal over those who see it, and a power that echoes in more contemporary disaster photographs.

           

 

According to Östen Axelsson (433), “[t]o create photographs with high appeal, photographers must elaborate on their hedonic tone and expressiveness via their familiarity, clarity, and dynamics.” These qualities are clearly present in the Shere version of the events of May 6, and stood as a precursor for other disaster photographs, including those shot as the Twin Towers were hit by airplanes in 2001.

            Shere’s image is beautifully composed—although it appears to have been staged (the airship is perfectly centered, yet extends far enough toward the margins to lend a feeling of expanse; the mooring tower is ideally framed to reflect the classical rule of thirds; the tonal range runs from rich black in the silhouetted figures of the foreground sprinting, terrified, from the falling airship, to the blinding whites of the explosion itself), nothing could be further than the truth. In fact, historians and scientists still debate the cause of the disaster, and will not rule out anything from lightning to a suicidal passenger firing a Luger on board. The image is, in a nutshell, accidental perfection: Shere was in the right place at the right time. The implications of the photograph, however, were much further-reaching than a well-composed image of a tragic event: Shere’s picture of the disaster effectively altered the future of intercontinental travel, and destroyed Nazi Germany’s potential for dominating the world’s airspace.

            As tensions between Berlin and the Western world amped up, Germany developed a fleet of hydrogen-filled airships that far exceeded ocean-going vessels in terms of speed and comfort. Their trans-Atlantic flight times were far superior to any technology implemented by the Allies, and Germany stood far and away in a position of transportation superiority. The Hindenburg disaster, captured so perfectly by Sam Shere, effectively ended Germany’s bid to rule the skies as the British navy ruled the seas in centuries past. The image, first published in American newspapers and magazines, eventually reached Europe’s shores, damning the German flight program and ending the era of hydrogen-filled dirigibles.

            Had the world only a photograph of the Hindenburg in less traumatic settings, the news of the tragedy may have traveled with the same celerity, but arguably would have had a significantly less permanent effect on the German flight program and the future of air travel. Photographs simply root viewers to people, events, and places, and Shere’s image redefined several nations’ fundamental roles in the future of technology and travel, without which we may still be floating about in flammable dirigibles, oblivious to the dangers of airship flight.

Axelsson, Östen. "Toward a Psychology of Photography: Dimension Underlying Aesthetic Appeal of Photographs." Perceptual and Motor Skills 105.2 (2007): 411-434. Web.

Hariman, Robert, and John Louis Lucaites. No Caption Needed: Iconic Photographs, Public Culture, and Liberal Democracy. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2007. Print.

The Photography Book. New York: Phaidon, 1997. Print.